It becomes an increasingly important trend now to eat away from home. The growth of the foodservice area is fueled by a number of factors including the fact that the industrialized nations are getting older, richer and have more women working and ethnic community increasingly prepared to eat away from home. The younger generation of ages between 15 to 30 also spends a large amount of their available cash on food away from home. This group learns early not to cook but to eat out. As a result, a large community is at the mercy of the standardized and poorly nutritional offer of food in some food service areas. This community is also very sensible to the nutritional deficiencies. Very little choice of nutritional, fresh and appealing food is generally proposed that provides beneficial and attractive effects such as in fastfoods, catering, restaurants, canteens or other foodservice facilities.
Refrigerated acidified dairy products such as yogurts are well known but their consumption out of home is under-estimated partly because the offer is poor in quality and/or unattractive. Their beneficial effect on the intestinal tract and flora has been recognized since a long time. As a result, yogurt has great potential as of a protective, anti-infection agent. They also benefit of a good image reflecting strong values such a healthy and responsible lifestyle.
Increased yogurt consumption might help increase one's resistance to immune-related diseases such infection, particularly gastrointestinal infection. This is in part due to the live and active cultures found in acidified dairy products. Acidified dairy products continues to be an excellent source of calcium and a good source of protein. The claim most substantiated is yogurt's beneficial effect on digestion in some individuals. People who are lactose intolerant have a hard time digesting milk products because they lack the enzyme that breaks down the main carbohydrate in milk. Yogurt or other acidified dairy products is a unique food because the starter cultures actually produce that enzyme during fermentation. Thus, the milk sugar in yogurt is more easily digested, even for lactose-intolerant individuals. Many people who commonly experience gas, bloating or discomfort from dairy foods can digest yogurt more easily, thanks to the starter cultures. This is especially true if the yogurt contains live cultures.
The usefulness of probiotics in reducing the risk of intestinal infections has also been evidenced. Studies have shown, for example, that children suffering from chronic diarrhea recover faster when fed yogurt with probiotic cultures. Adults suffering from traveler's diarrhea also seem to benefit.
As women tend to reduce their milk consumption as they get older-which may lead to osteoporosis-and children consume more soft drinks than milk, acidified product such as yogurt provides a great-tasting way to get the calcium and protein needed to maintain good health. Therefore, the consumption of acidified dairy product is recommended on a daily basis by persons of all age and particularly, children, active persons and elderly people.
Spoonable acidified dairy products are normally provided to the consumer in a plastic or waxboard type cup with a lid. Such products commonly come in a form having fruit sauce at the bottom and plain yogurt above this fruit layer. They can be commonly found in grocery stores or shelves of self-service cafeterias.
Alternatively, hand-made or industrially prepared dairy products exist such as “Parfait”-type layered products that are pre-assembled for later sale. Those products comprise superimposed layers of fruit sauce and yogurt that are either made by hand in a remote corner of the restaurant or are manufactured in an industrial setting and frozen for transport and preservation.
The hand-made products suffer from several drawbacks. Firstly, the preparation is not time and labor efficient. Secondly, the results may also vary from one operator to another and repeatability of just the desired products cannot be ensured overtime or from place to place. Therefore, the consumer may be once deceived from the product and decide not to buy the product anymore. Thirdly, customization to the complexity of the consumer's demand is difficult which therefore limits the choice for several attractive designs which would render the offer even more appealing and/or would touch a larger public.
The industrially prepared dairy products suffer from further drawbacks. The product is produced in the factory from refrigerated components which are deposited in the cup according to a predetermined design. The packaged products in general are cooled to refrigerated temperatures and maintained refrigerated through consumption. Such commercially refrigerated products suffer from several drawbacks. The quality of the product tends to degrade over time and special formulations are required and/or additives such as stabilizers must be added to the product to prevent bleeding or syneresis of the certain components of the product. The flexibility in providing various product designs, flavors and textures is limited due to the resources in manufacturing labor and production lines. The costs in packaging, storage and transport of such portioned products is relatively high.
The industrially prepared low acid dairy products might also be frozen to retain their attractive design of separated layers. Normally, the product is sensitive to thawing and its stability degrades after a few minutes after being thawed. In order to reduce after-thawing stability problems, little free water is kept in the frozen product and large amounts of stabilizers are included. Stabilizers usually affect the natural taste and viscosity of the product and the consumer is very keen in noticing these changes. The foodservice operator must remove the product from the freezer several hours before serving and keep the product in a refrigerator to avoid temperature abuse of the product which would raise the acidity level and possibly provide contamination. Therefore, storage floor is consumed in the foodservice place. Anticipation of the consumer's demand is also required which can be a problem as re-freezing of the product after thawing is absolutely forbidden for sanitary reasons.
Another problem may also occur that affects the quality of the product itself due to the thawing of the product. Indeed, as the product in the cup exhibits different phases such as dairy phase and the fruit sauce or syrup phase, the relatively long period for fully decreasing the temperature until chilled temperature of consumption is reached, effects the contrast and external aspect of freshness of the product. Usually, the product experiences a “bleeding” effect of the more liquid phase; e.g., the syrup or sauce, into the dairy phase. As a result, the product attractiveness and the fresh looking aspect and perceived quality are adversely affected.
Prior art devices and processes do not remedy these problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,832 relates to a complicated frozen dessert and drink dispenser for simultaneous or alternate dispensing of two products. The dispenser has an automated cleaning system for cleaning the pieces in contact with the frozen food product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,392 relates to a yogurt/cereal grain mixture dispensing machine using manual gravity for dispensing the product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,448 relates to a system and method for dispensing and combining refrigerated source liquids such as juices, yogurt, etc., which serve as base level ingredients in the preparation of pulverized, slush-like consistency consumer beverages. The system contemplates that addition of flavoring additives to the refrigerated component by ladling or scooping directly into a blending receptacle of a finishing station. Such system and method remain labor consuming and lacks convenience for the operator. Furthermore, the appearance of the resulting product that is served to the consumer is limited due to the manual blending and will greatly depend on the personal ability of the operator to make it attractive and original.
Therefore, there is a need for providing control over the preparation and serving of multi-components refrigerated products for improving appearance and meeting consumer's demand and acceptance.
There is also a need for providing on demand in a cost, labor efficient and rapid way, a product having an improved appealing appearance over the existing refrigerated products.
There is also a need for increasing the overall attractiveness of refrigerated healthy desserts in the foodservice area by proposing an offer that is capable of more closely matching the demand of the consumers for fresh, good looking, good tasting, nutritious and healthy products.
There is also a need for providing the aforementioned advantages while delivering a product on demand without preparation and significant waiting time.
There is also a need for more flexibility in the delivery of attractive healthy and good looking products to the consumer with a liberty to customize products upon request.
There is also a need for achieving the on-demand production of multi-components products of fresh, stable and attractive appearance with no apparent “bleeding” effect.
There is also a need for providing multi-component products having phase stability upon serving to the consumer without requiring the use of important amounts of stabilizers.
There is also a need for achieving distinctive but reproductive product designs that may confer a signature for a brand, a store or a restaurant's network.
There is also a need for providing relatively sophisticated products dispensed in a system of relatively small foot print and possibly, a range of products of different appearance and/or nature; i.e., made from a variety of food components, while not affecting the space efficiency and equipment cost.
There is also a need for dispensing air sensitive products, such as refrigerated acidified dairy products and the like, while avoiding direct contact with permanent pieces of the dispensing systems that would require complicated and time consuming cleaning operations.
The present invention now satisfies these needs.